Blood-Stained
by Batsutousai
Summary: The military might be able to force Ed to fight in Ishval, but they couldn't force him to survive it.


**Title:** _Blood-Stained_  
 **Fandom:** _Fullmetal Alchemist_  
 **Author:** Batsutousai  
 **Rating:** Mature  
 **Pairings:** Edward Elric  & Roy Mustang  
 **Warnings:** Alternate Universe, Ishvalan Civil War, war crimes, murder, unnamed character death, angst, suicidal mind-set  
 **Summary:** The military might be able to force Ed to fight in Ishval, but they couldn't force him to survive it.

 **Disclaim Her:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

 **A/N:** For RoyEd Week on tumblr. Today's prompts included such gems as _Ed as part of the war AU_ and _Vulnerabilities_.  
This is actually more pre-slash than anything truly shippy, but this was what I ended up with. (And I guess it means I have another AU to eventually come back to, at some point when my muse decides to be not-a-massive-shit-fuck.)

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, tumblr, or LiveJournal.

-0-  
-0-

Ed had taken and passed the State Alchemist exam at thirteen, answering the siren's promise of a way to get his brother's body back. And he was allowed to do whatever research he'd wanted for a whole two years, and then Führer Bradley signed Order 3066, and when Ed threatened to defect to avoid being sent to the battlefield, he was grabbed and roughly forced to kneel, to watch as his little brother – unresisting, because there were at least three guns pointed at Ed, and Al would _never_ do anything to endanger Ed – was dismantled and carted away in pieces.

Major General Raven smiled at him, once the last of Al was out of Ed's view, then said, "Your train leaves in just under an hour, Major Elric. You'd best hurry."

"I will kill you," Ed snarled, didn't quite mean the words – not _yet_ – but they sounded good, even if Raven's smile just widened in response.

"The sooner those red-eyed scum are dead, the sooner you'll see your brother again," he said. Promised. _Threatened_. Ed wasn't certain which one, but he stormed out of the building with a stomach churning in equal parts illness and rage.

On the train, he was forced to change into a uniform, to hide away the familiar red coat that had always been his defiance against the organisation he'd been made to join, certain to stand out, no matter how large the crowd.

He tried to help Ishvalans escape – children and elderly, mostly, the ones without guns – and only wounded enemy combatants and took away their weapons, at first. But then his commanding officer – some colonel he didn't care enough about to bother with learning the name of – pulled out a very familiar piece of armour, the red flamel stark against the too-dull grey metal. "The military's always looking for more scraps to melt down, Fullmetal," he offered. "I hope I'm making myself clear."

Ed clenched his hands into fists, left one aching, as tightly as it was clenched, and had to swallow down first, a wordless scream, and second a bitter sob. Somehow, he managed a tight, "Crystal, sir," before turning on his heels and storming from the fucker's tent, returning to his own tent and burying himself in his sandy blankets so he could scream into his pillow and no one would know.

His first kill was a woman, whispering pleas for her life even as he slit her throat with his own hand-turned-blade.

He threw up after, leaning against the corner of a building and trying not to notice the way the blood that was still dripping from his blade mixed with the bile and sand. It was there he was attacked anew, a yelling Ishvalan man coming at him with a blade, and he'd ducked and struck out before he'd even thought about it, didn't realise until more blood was staining his hand, that he'd taken another life.

He wandered the battlefield after that for a bit, completely forgetting his squadron, and half hoping someone would just _shoot him_. That men and women with dark skin and wild red eyes would stop running toward him with weapons drawn, because his survival instinct was too strong _not_ to fight back.

Which wasn't to say no one ever shot at him, just that they were always either glancing blows, or hit his automail. Never enough to kill him, though he supposed an infection or dehydration could, if he kept wandering long enough.

He wasn't given that choice, though, as someone in Amestris blue found him first, yanking him out of the path of a bullet that well may have finished him.

"What are you doing?!" Ed screamed at them.

"That's what I should be asking you, you little fool!" the other person – a male – hissed back.

Something old and vaguely unfamiliar stirred inside him, and Ed heard himself quietly complaining, "Don't call me _small_."

And then, inexplicably, he started to cry, felt sick and too young and so very much like a monster in human skin.

"Hey!" the guy said, sounding panicked. "Are you– Shit. You're not...hurt, are you?"

Ed choked on a laugh and looked up to meet wide black eyes, was pretty sure he sounded a little crazy when he asked, "Would it matter?"

" _Yes_ , it would matter," the man stressed, and then he pulled Ed into a tight hug, and Ed felt his breath catch. "You have to live. To keep going. Get home to whoever's waiting for you."

 _Al_.

But, how could Ed _possibly_ face his brother after the lives he'd taken? How could he show Winry and Granny the blood dried between the chinks of the automail they'd made for him? How could Auntie Sarah and Uncle Yuriy bear to hug him again, when his hands were stained with the blood of his own victims, rather than lives saved?

How could Ed go home?

A bullet pinged off Ed's automail shoulder – _fuck_ , but the Ishvalans were shitty shots – and the man holding Ed cursed, before there came the sound of a _snap_ and the smell of ozone filled the air, followed quickly by a rush of heat, so much more unbearable than this cruel land already felt.

Ed twisted to look behind himself, and found one of the man's hands extended, fingers and thumb held tight together. Alchemic energy sparked around his hand, just before a line of fire raced toward and engulfed an Ishvalan man pointing a gun toward them.

"Are you hurt?!" the man holding Ed demanded, hands running up Ed's back and over his shoulders, even as the Ishvalan man crumpled to a heap, corpse smouldering.

Ed swallowed and shook his head, offered, "He hit my automail." And then, a bit flatly, added, "You're the Flame Alchemist."

"Regretfully," the man said, and when Ed met his eyes again, he found the same wretched grief he felt staring back at him. And then the man said, "Can you walk? It's not safe here. And I _am_ taking you back to camp."

Ed closed his eyes and drooped, but he didn't fight when Flame chivvied him to his feet and led the way back to the nearest Amestrisan camp. There, he bore the less-than-gentle care of the medics in silence, gave no response to questions about what he was doing so far from his post, once they'd figured out where he should have been.

He didn't see Flame for a couple days, ordered to bedrest by the medical team. (It probably would have been longer, but his commanding officer was _adamant_ that they needed him back in his area, if he was fighting fit; fuck knew no one in the military cared if Ed was mentally stable, so long as he could and would still kill people.) But, when he was released, Flame and another man were sitting together next to the fire closest to the medical tent, backs to him.

"Flame," he called ahead of himself, and his voice came out flat.

Both Flame and the man with him looked over, and the other man's eyes went wide behind cracked glasses, while Flame offered him a broken sort of smile. "Fullmetal," he returned; clearly, he'd found out Ed's codename while he'd been held prisoner by the medical staff.

"Shit, how old _are_ you?" the other man said.

" _Hughes_ ," Flame hissed, disapproving.

"Fifteen," Ed offered with a shrug, and both men winced. "Yeah. Probably would have been kinder, leaving me out there."

Flame shook his head and reached out to take Ed's automail hand, either unaware or uncaring about the the dried blood in the joints. "As many as we have to kill," he said quietly, earnestly, "it's nice to be able to _save_ a life. Sometimes."

Ed stared at him, not really sure how to respond to that, until the man looked away, clearly uncomfortable. Then Ed grunted and pulled his hand away. "Whatever. Thanks, I guess; they'd probably kill my brother if I died and no one brought back my body." And then he turned away from their quiet, horrified noises, toward where he knew his section of the camp lay. "Bye."

"Fullmetal!" Flame called before he could get more than two steps away, and Ed stopped, but didn't look back. "Your brother, fight to get back to him."

Ed snorted and started walking again, didn't reply with the words on the tip of his tongue: 'How can I fight to return to someone who will never forgive me for what I've done?'

-0-

He didn't see Flame or the glasses guy again until after it was all over, and he made his way over to where he spotted them during the general assembly, limping a little because his automail leg had been giving him trouble for the past couple days. (He was trying so fucking hard _not_ to think about where he needed to go next, so it was nice to see someone that might serve as a distraction.)

"Which means," Glasses was saying as Ed got in hearing range, "in order to protect this _entire country_ , you're going to have to climb to the _top_ of the rat's nest."

"It must feel good to be up there, eh, Hughes?" Flame replied, and there was anger and determination in his tone, enough to make Ed clench his fists, feel a little bit alive again. "But I won't be able to climb to the top on my own. Of that, at least, I'm confident."

"Sounds like," Ed said, and both men jumped and turned to face him, "you're going to need some help." And then he met Flame's wide eyes and held out his left hand. "Flame."

"Fullmetal," Flame replied, taking his hand in a firm grip. "What about your brother?"

Ed tried a smile, was fairly certain it came out a twisted, ruined sort of thing. "What about him? He'll probably go back to Granny, once I get him out of custody. Can't imagine he'd want to stay with me, any more."

Glasses – Hughes, Flame kept calling him – shook his head. "Are you sure you're being fair to him?"

Ed narrowed his eyes on the guy.

Glasses held his hands up in a brief show of surrender, then elbowed Flame. "I guess you've got two of us, then." And _then_ he held out his left hand toward Ed. "Maes Hughes. Roy and I were in the academy together."

Ed had to swallow a couple of times, but he did manage to lift his own hand and reply, "Ed Elric. Fullmetal Alchemist," before Glasses could retract his hand.

Flame let out a scoff, and Glasses and Ed both looked over to find him turning away from where Bradley was standing at the head of the assembly, apparently staring straight at them. "Let's go," he muttered, stepping past Ed, placing his hand on his shoulder for a brief moment as he did. (He'd probably squeezed it or something, too, but it had been his automail shoulder, so Ed had no way of knowing.)

Ed didn't turn to follow right away, though. Instead, he took a moment to glare at Bradley, let himself remember every reason he hated the fucker – there were a lot; no way Bradley couldn't know Al was being held hostage, as many people as it had taken to subdue Ed and take Al apart – before he finally turned away and followed after the other two. And if a terrible, _monstrous_ smile crawled its way across his face, well.

It was Bradley and Raven's own fault they'd taught Ed how to kill.

.


End file.
